Scent Of Rain
by Secono
Summary: The Bakumatsu never ended. Kaoru, an assassin trying to survive the bloody era of killing, meets the legendary Hitokiri Battousai… And sparks fly.


A/N: After my strange disappearance, I managed to post...My second fanfic! (Don't worry, I still haven't given up trying to take over the world...) Anyways, enjoy!

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_**Bakumatsu, Kyoto:**_

The figure moves.

Blending in with the darkness, she waits patiently outside the shoji screen. Hand posed loosely over a Japanese katana, the woman observes the world through empty eyes. Fighting for a bloody future…with a bloody past. An orange moon rises slowly, leisurely saluting the starry sky. It appeared to be a peaceful night, but little did the present understand the fate that comes…

_  
It was the era to kill._

Gradually, the voices die down, until only the gentle chirping of summer crickets remain. The figure tenses, waiting for the inevitable.

She glides like a phantom ghost over polished wood, never faltering, confident in her abilities to perform on the bloody stage of another play of life and death.

Reaching a shoji screen, she raises a calloused hand, one that had bathed in the blood of a thousand lifetimes, and calmly slides back the paper door.

"_I have come for you life."_ She states in an unemotional tone, a reminder of days past, spent in a shriveled shell of tight control.

Swift, calculated movements follow, an almost careless swish of a metal katana to the throat, another slash down the stomach, and the mission is complete…She gives him no chance to scream.

Crimson floods the futon, leaving wide, unseeing eyes staring accusingly at the ceiling, afraid to face the real culprit.

"_Heaven's Justice."_

Silence settles once more on the deserted room, not once catching a glimpse of a shadow among shadows, fading into the brightening sky.

She casually flicks the blood off her sword with movements that suggest having done the same ritual a hundred times. The figure then moves, black hair fluttering in the breeze, gracefully, she slides with feral elegance, merging into the brightening horizon – fading with the last hues of nighttime.

Through it all, she watched with blue eyes."

Thoughts-

"_In the morning, I paint the horizon with blood. Drowning in endless seas of red, I cover my eyes with heavy canvas. I don't have to see the pain._

_My sword is my brush, sketching notes of bittersweet laughter onto white walls. I soak the polished stones with specks of crimson, a stream of stars that fade…_

_When day chases away their screams."_

Thoughts-

**ooooooo**

**Tenth Year Of The Bakumatsu, Kyoto**

The Japanese revolution.

Three simple words that hold so much suffering, so much pain. They call it the cornerstone of peace…But who believes?

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No one. Not anymore._

We kill for the wishful dream of a better Japan, but can a peaceful future truly be built on the corpse of a bloody past? Don't we too, deserve a chance at happiness? The weight of destiny is heavy. Death is not.

Someday, somewhere, I imagine children playing. The breeze is gentle, cleansed from the scent of blood…I can hear laughter.

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Innocent laughter._

You, my listener, are just another pawn in the perpetual battle for immortality…one more voice to be silenced – but my time is ending…I must take up my katana once more tonight, I must repeat the never – ending cycle that so eluded me by never breaking for ten years …ten years of death…Maybe it was meant to go on…Perhaps we are all just toys, forever enslaved to a higher being.

I cannot forget…But you, child, can. For you are the future - to you, life is only as you will it. Learn from the mistakes of an older generation, and change them.

The student must have a teacher, someone to learn from – someone to correct their mistakes. Yet the teacher has no one…

I wish that someone would believe in fate.

_Because I cannot._

" I was born beneath falling petals – amid the drifting rain of pink cherry blossoms. That was why, as a young girl of a wealthy family, I had been content - Spring has always come…Bringing with it the promise of flowers and laughter, chasing away another nightmare. That was what built my strength.

Trust.

_I trusted._

My family had always assumed that I was a naïve girl, growing up to be an innocent woman.

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What happened to that child?_

I remember running after a single butterfly after dusk one day, believing that it was lost, and needed a home. I had tried to keep it, but it flew away, just like the clean scent of the ocean on the morning breeze. The colors of twilight had blended together, casting surreal shadows of color over the darkening sky. I had waited in my wind torn kimono, in silence for what seemed like forever, for one last glance at its beautiful pastel wings, confident in fate to bring it back.

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But it didn't. _

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Perhaps that was the first step of my downward spiral …from innocence."_

"I had started doubting the rules placed on society at 8, thinking that we all deserved a chance at happiness…It was then that I truly understood the meaning of war – a battle for a better future for humankind. I had been awed by the brave souls who gave up so much to fight for peace…But in my childish purity, I had forgotten the true meaning of pain – _death is irreversible._

My family, at first, had been shocked when I asked for permission to join the rebellion for control of Japan, and then laughed it off, thinking that I was teasing. Dismissing the incident, they went back to the party, drowning themselves in expensive perfume and sake.

They weren't laughing when I ran away from home that night, however.

Those fateful hours are forever engraved into my memory by a burning sword of flames.

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Leave me alone, memories…I must not fall prey to another daydream…" _

"_There was a full moon that night. _

_It hung in the sky like a swollen fish egg, with tiny sprinkles of white sesame seeds adorning the cerulean plate of the heavens. The ancient treetops that poked into the horizon seemed endless - just like the pile of horse – radishes I've always hated. The houses seemed like chop – sticks stuck together in intricate towers. Tofu, the fluffy kind that mother used to make, decorated the infinite blues with floating clouds that slowly drifted over the midnight scene like a filmy blanket of watery paint. _

_I had never been a coward, but tonight…tonight, I had a purpose. I had to find the leader of the Ishin side, and in doing so, secure my position in the history of peace._

_Little did I know that true peace cannot be built on death."_

You must never give in to the insanity of killing. There is no going back to purity after spilling the blood of another man. I still think of my first victim…I remember his eyes – so…hopeless.

_There was blood._

Blood on the snow, sizzling with the understanding of darkness, a thousand crimson strands of lost life running down my blade.

_It was cold._

Yet I felt only disgust and pity - I had killed. Just quick swishes of my blade, and countless generations have been severed. Maybe I did not understand the enormous weight that had been placed on me…but all I knew was that…I had to kill, for a better future…for peace.

That was the last thing I felt – swept into a tide of dull pain, I sharpened my sword on tormented screams…Then, after a few times…I didn't give them a chance to scream.

_There is always light beyond the darkness…  
But I cannot reach it._

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A/N: Well... :) Please tell me what you think about it! (I still haven't mastered the art of formatting…Help?)


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